I'm posting my initial impression of Izuna 2 here until I get further into it to do something worthy of a full review.

Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns.

My first impression is that this is REALLY easy as far as Roguelikes go, it borders on being Roguelite but I think it falls just short of crossing over into that territory.

Why it's a Roguelike:

If you die you lose your items and money, all of them, and return to town.

Dungeon crawling where each level is randomnly generated.

Turn based action.

Lots and lots of items, most of which are not identified.

Why it's a Roguelite (almost):

You can store items and money that will persist even after death.

You keep your EXP when you die.

You can choose to bring a party member with you while dungeon crawling and you can switch between the two, even if the primary character "dies".

Since it's a graphical Roguelike for the DS I keep wanting to compare it to Shiren so I'll make the followingn additional observations.

The graphics are good. Large handdrawn sprites are used for conversations while standard looking sprites are used for the dungeon crawliing. This is sort of unfair to compare with Shiren which is a port of an old Super Nintendo game or to Nethack which I still play in ASCII flavor but whatever *shrug*.

Unlike Shiren you can't retreat to previous floors in a dungeon but also unlike Shiren the Dungeons don't seem to be a linear progression. Town appears to act like a hub and there seem to be multiple dungeons.

Weapons in Izuna can break through use. This adds a nice bit of resource management and difficulty which brings me to the other thing Izuna does that I like.

Talismans are basically magic stickers you can find throughout the dungeons. You can either use them like a spell scroll by reading them, or you can stick them on a weapon to grant it some ability OR stick to a staff to make the staff magic. This seems to be how you would grind weapons up to uber levels of power through careful application of talismans, assuming you don't break the weapon.

The game also has a voice overs during most character conversations. I give it bonus points for using the original Japanese voices and not redubbing. The game also has a good sense of humor.

Overall initial impressions are favorable, if you like Roguelikes I would get it. It was well worth the less than ten bucks I spent on it

Doom the Roguelike is AWESOME. I'm a Doom addict, playing on Skulltag frequently, and I still had fun with this.That said, it's unmercifully hard on anything but the easiest difficulty, especially how much relies on chance. For example, the second level, I run into a Combat Shotgun immediately. YES! Finally, the game gives me a break.And then makes the only accessible room full of acid, making me use three stimpacks to survive, only to be killed in Hell's Arena without them.Oh, and if you get to The Wall and decide to try and blow through it... Two tips: Aim so your weapons hit all the way to the side, and those nosies you hear aren't for nothin'....EDIT: Oh, and I haven't played the other Roguelikes, but more things that make Doom really, REALLY hard:The only time you can save is on exit stairs, and that's only so you can quit and do something else. So, it turns off the game, and reloads where you saved, ONCE. No lives for you!And the inventory was HELL for me. Because of the super-limited space, I always end up with a modified combat shotgun, modified rocket launcher (or missile launcher), modified BFG, ammo, a single warp and rad suit, and some medkits. The first time I played, I hoarded EVERYTHING, and paid dearly when I got raped for only have lots of pistols with lots of bullets.

I have to say that since reading this thread, I've become infactuated with this and desperately want to delve into NetHack once I get past the learning {POWER} curve.

I feel bad because I posted this on another thread that wasn't in the best context but I'll put it here so that it will have a proper home. I figured I'd share a relatively new one out there entitled Rouge Survivor http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/. Guess what the situation is... ZMOG surviving in an undead world!!

Does anyone know where I can get a NetHack GUI for the Win32 edition that has the same interface as the MAC version? I'd like the bigger stats and a few colorful pictures for windows without going full blown Vulture's Eye or something crazy like that. Thanks!

Logged

The best revenge you can achieve in world of the undead is surviving, living, and remaining human. - Max Brooks said something like that in one of his masterpieces.

Other fun things to do in Doom Roguelike:Go to the Unholy Cathedral with nothing but ranged weapons! (You pull the trigger! Nothing happens! ''FFFFFF-")Pull levers! (Your armor is repaired! All the barrels explode! ARACHNOTRONS EVERYWHERE!)'Kehehehe, this is going to be a mess... Where the hell is the way out?!' "FUCK" (Play the game. You'll understand, and you will rage whenever it happens.)